Today, on January 24 of 2023, the last remaining member of the band, Panic At the Disco, announced that the band is officially disbanding. This comes as the band is wrapping up their Viva la Vengeance Tour of their album, which sports the same name, and nearly 2 decades after the band’s conception. In that time they released 7 full albums, along with other solo tracks and EPs.
The band was originally formed in 2004 by Ryan Ross, Spencer Smith, Brent Wilson and Brendon Urie. The History of Panic! At The Disco explains the specifics of who and when the members left, along with their reasons why, but essentially the band went through a lot of changes throughout the years, adding and removing members. It continued till their Death of a Bachelor era, where during this album promotion Urie was the only member and it’s since stayed like that, until now.
Even though the band was first formed as an alternative rock band, similar to others at the time, such as Fall Out Boy and My Chemical Romance, it never completely stayed that way. The band never kept the same sound for more than one album and this proved simultaneously refreshing and irritating, as people who came for a certain theme might not always stay for the next. I, for one, enjoyed this fully, except for their most recent and first album.
The news of the breakup was surprising, but not unexpected; the band has always gone through problems and most had believed them to be disbanded in 2019, as they didn’t release music for years, but they came back with a new album that we now know is their final one. Their 3 year break and last album were two of the reasons I began to distance myself from the band, along with the fact that Urie had problems that were beginning to come to light. However, their music had been my favorite for years, with some of their songs still on repeat for me and, unsurprisingly, they might always be.
Additionally, I believe this to be true for other fans as well, which is why the news was quite sad. However, the announcement also brought happy news as Urie revealed he and his wife are expecting a child, one of the main reasons why he disbanded the group, which, at this point, had become a solo project and act for Urie.